I promised my aging parents I would never put them into assisted care, but taking care of them myself is currently impossible. Am I betraying them? — Anxious Daughter
Dear Anxious Daughter, Your question captures a resonant moral tension: how do we honour commitments to loved ones when we cannot fulfil them as we might desire or previously promised? When we promise to offer such care, we hold ourselves to high standards, but life and circumstances change in ways we don’t expect. Our questioning must shift from whether we are holding to the promise in its original form to how our acts of caring might adapt to the contours and context reality demands.
“Caring” asks more of us than the fulfilment of idealistic promises. It asks for fidelity, a responsive commitment to our loved ones. Such faithfulness endures when it discovers and rediscovers ways to remain attentive without pretending we can do what we cannot. Fidelity, therefore, requires openness to creative forms of caring, even if that means entrusting the care of loved ones to others.
The wisdom of Ecclesiastes, with its insight that “for everything there is a season,” reinforces this need for flexibility. Faithfulness, the passage implies, involves shifting roles as life changes, adapting commitments to meet current needs. Proverbs 16:9 echoes this, noting that “the human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps,”calling us to humility and openness to life’s unpredictability.
With this sense of humility and openness, wisdom challenges us to embrace hope in a way that is not naive but courageous. When we practise this hope, we can meet our present realities and obstacles — a rising cost of living and the demands of family and career, for example — that impede our promise to caretake for our parents.
We can then become open to practices of caring we hadn’t anticipated. We can understand and accept the fragility of our plans (and ourselves), as well as the unpredictability of the future. Entrusting the care of aging parents to professionals with the tools and skills to offer quality care can therefore be an act of hope.
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So, if I may, let me encourage you to move beyond idealized promises, which can prevent you from seeing the reality of your situation and your capacity. In fact, attempting to care personally for aging parents without the necessary time or skills can strain yourself, your parents and those who depend on you.
By allowing others to step in, you can honour your commitment in a way that benefits all, nurturing fidelity and hope, lovingly.
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Ashley Moyse is a Canadian ethicist, theologian and assistant professor of medical ethics at Columbia University in New York City. Do you have an ethical dilemma? Send it to general@broadview.org.
This article first appeared in Broadview’s March 2024 issue with the title “Should I Move My Parents into Assisted Care?”
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